Wonder Woman
Diana Prince, better known as Wonder Woman and also Princess Diana of Themyscira, is a character from the DC Universe and the titular protagonist of the franchise of the same name. She is a founding member of the Justice League, a goddess, and Ambassador-at-Large of the Amazon people. The character first appeared in All Star Comics #8 in December 1941 and first cover-dated on Sensation Comics #1, in January 1942. In her homeland, the island nation of Themyscira, her official title is Princess Diana of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta. When blending into the society outside of her homeland, she adopts her civilian identity Diana Prince. Description Wonder Woman was created in 1941 by psychologist William Moulton Marston (then an educational consultant to DC Comics) along with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, as a deliberate counterpoint to the all-male stable of "Übermenschen" published by DC at the time. Marston was remarkably free of the era's usual prejudices about and disdain for women, and intentionally designed the character to embody his image of an idealized strong, unconventional and independent female. The character first appeared in All-Star Comics #8 (December, 1941). Marston was also vital in the development of the polygraph ("lie detector") — which may be why Wonder Woman's lasso forces criminals to speak the truth. Marston also had unconventional views on psychology and sexuality. He and his wife had a third partner, Olive Byrne — unconventional by today's standards, grounds for potential arrest in 1941. A central part of his (and Wonder Woman's) worldview was the idea "submission to loving authority," which shares some elements with BDSM and/or bondage, which many modern commentators have noticed - e.g., the "Suffering Sappho!" section of Superdickery.com. Marston's writing is still hotly debated in fandom spaces; some people criticize his work as fetish fuel, others characterize this as a gross oversimplification. He also had very unconventional views on how the world should be run for the time he lived in, believing a Matriarchy would be superior to the male-dominated world of the 1940s. This was the basis for Paradise Island. Due to the deal Marston struck with DC, for a long time (at least through 1986), DC had to publish at least four issues of Wonder Woman each year or lose the rights to the character. This may have been one of the reasons that she was one of the few superheroes who continued publishing during The Interregnum, along with Superman, Batman and a handful of others. Her longevity is certainly one reason that contributed to her being one of DC's "Big Three" — as Frank Miller described it — Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, are all the "gods" of the DC Universe, and the rest are all "just" heroes (something that is taken to its logical extreme in the Kurt Busiek/Mark Bagley year-long series Trinity). Also playing a big role was her 1970s TV series with Lynda Carter and her visibility in the Super Friends cartoon. Originally, Wonder Woman's powers were relatively limited, compared with her contemporaries. She was strong, but not as strong as Superman. She was fast, but not as fast as The Flash. She couldn't fly, but she could "glide on air currents" and most of her powers were gadget-based such as the bullet-deflecting bracelets, the Lasso of Truth, the invisible jet. The Silver Age version of the character was stated as having the Strength of Hercules and the Speed of Hermes, deities who were shown to be a match for Superman and Flash, respectively, in other series. Wonder Woman herself battled Superman to a standstill in the tabloid-sized special comic "Superman versus Wonder Woman". The bosomy, raven-haired Amazon heroine was never as well-known by the general public as the other "big heroes" until the 1970s, thanks to Shannon Farnon, her voice actress on Super Friends, and Lynda Carter, who portrayed her in prime time. In addition, feminists loved her, as evidenced by her being on the cover of the premiere issue of the movement's flagship magazine, Ms. At the same time, however, Wonder Woman was undergoing a Re Tool; with the popularity of shows like The Avengers, and its visions of strong Action Girls, she lost her powers, took up martial arts under inscrutable old Oriental guy I Ching, and became Undercover Agent Diana Prince. Ironically, this period was mostly ended by the above feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, who protested the depowering of a strong female character (the aforementioned Ms. cover was the vanguard of this). Plus, the stories themselves were generally considered below-par and no longer relevant with The Avengers having ended. As a result, Diana was repowered and rejoined the Justice League, and the whole episode is considered a Dork Age, though it is referenced from time to time. Later, she was revamped for Crisis on Infinite Earths by the comics legend George Perez. She was powered-up, giving her flight, and tying her much more to Greek mythology and a mission as a messenger of peace to "Patriarch's World". Furthermore, she considered a Secret Identity obviously counterproductive in that role, so she stayed with her new friends, Julia Kapatelis, a classical Greek scholar, and her daughter Vanessa. Furthermore, Steve Trevor was revised to be old enough to be Diana's father, thus precluding the cliché romance; instead, he romanced Etta Candy. However, it turns out that he is indirectly linked to Diana's home since his mother, Diana Trevor, crash landed there and died helping the Amazons defeat a monster, making her a deeply honored hero to them. In addition, she was simultaneously made much more naïve and tougher. The naïveté is such that Wonder Woman could not conceive of a woman being an enemy, which made the time when the Cheetah tried to con her out of her lasso an extremely upsetting moment. The toughness comes from being a classically trained warrior who is ready to kill as necessary and with no regrets, such as when she decapitated the villainous god Deimos. At the same time, her supervillain enemies became much more credible threats as in how the Cheetah was changed from a normal woman in a silly cheetah suit to a villain who became a powerful and deadly were-cheetah who is a real challenge to Diana in battle. Literature Despite appearing in two completely different universes (Wonder Woman is DC while Hela is Marvel), Wonder Woman is one of two comic book characters who the wiki founder uses as inspiration for character design for Lady of Destiny, though unlike Hela, the Amazon actually is a trans wiki article because the wiki founder re-uses her for the Surgeon stories and may decide to bring her back for future stories within the series along with the other superheroines either used as Slitheen disguises or used as Pretender disguises. In this case, the wiki founder uses Wonder Woman as the basis for the series' protagonist Bregeswith. Thus, Wonder Woman is one of three characters to be used as the basis for parallel forms for the Anglo Saxon women introduced in Soldiers and Demons with the others being Daenerys Targaryen used for the basis of the parallel form of Hildegyth and Kuvira who is used for the basis of the parallel form of Elfswitha when she is given command of the Obsidian Corps. Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Canon